Tried to do a hulu link, but I'm in Canada, so not only can I not watch episode from them, I can't even give a link to my U.S. friends! But you yanks should be able to watch episodes at the abc link, right? (Unlike us hosers... )

Best Nashville line of last night was Deacon's retort to Claire's "you don't like mah Avery": "Do you want me to give him a balloon every time I see him?" I was laughing so hard I had to rewind to catch the stuff afterwards. Glad to see Rayna taking control of her career and Juliette dating someone in her own age bracket.

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Quoting dbell1 from the other thread because I wanted to agree with her but thought it was better to post it here!

I really liked that new song Rayna did with the producer and agree that her taking control of her career is a great step for her. Juliette was actually almost human last night which was a nice change and the football guy will be great for her reputation (and for her personally since he's a good guy). Not enough Deacon in this episode for me and maybe it's just me but I don't think Avery is a horrible guy. I think he's caught up between trying to support his girlfriend in her writing career and being jealous that her success seems to be happening so easily while he's been struggling for a long time. That can be a tough spot to be in but I do think some of his decisions and reactions to things are only going to come back and really bite him in the behind. I hope they redeem him a little bit soon because Jonathon Jackson is WAY too talented to be wasted as the bad guy in one of the side stories of this show. The political stuff doesn't interest me as much but having both sides heading into ugly territory does make things a lot more exciting there. Bummed there's no new episode next week but the new one after the holiday should be pretty awesome.

I'm enjoying every second of this show. Love all the characters and actors, and like HeatherC, hope that Avery doesn't fall by the wayside as there's a lot of potential there. This is what I'm loving about the show - all the characters are complex.

Love Rayna's struggle to stay relevant, and Juliette's to be herself, whatever that might be. Don't mind the political SL at all - with the father in particular, I'm reminded of the classic nighttime soaps of the 80s, notably the fabulous Knots Landing. Every soap needs a character like him! I'm also interested in Rayna's sister - there's got to be more going on there.

And of course the music - definitely buying the CD, and will fill in downloads along the way.

I find it interesting that Hayden's songs haven't done better as I think her stuff is quite similiar to what Carrie Underwood has released. It also fits into the format of country radio more than the songs of Clare and Sam, whose work is more alt-country (Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Allison Moorer,etc.) which gets little (if any) respect from country radio.

If it helps clarify things a little, they're not on the radio airplay chart. There's a new Billboard country chart that consists of country radio airplay plus pop radio airplay plus sales, and that's the chart they're on. (It's caused a lot of fuss among those who follow these things, because the main Billboard country chart no longer accurately reflects what's on country radio. So for instance, you now have Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever" etc., which actually did pretty poorly on country radio and was yanked some time ago, currently sitting at the top of the Billboard country chart. The actual country radio airplay chart is here.)

All that to say, on the actual country radio chart, "Telescope" is the only Nashville song that's charted that I know of. I'm not even sure any of the others were actually released to radio.

I loved "If I Didn&#8217;t Know Better (Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio)" the best of all the songs performed so far. It has a little something I really like. And I am still waiting for something similar to happen to the show. We'll see !

I thought the show was really great tonight overall and I loved that final duet between Rayna and Juliette. I assume Rayna listened to the CD that Deacon gave her which is what made her think that the two of them could write something together. They are so going to end up touring together and using Scarlett & Gunner's songs somehow at some point during this season and if they can keep up the whole "being able to work together but still snarking about/towards the other one" thing going for a while, then it will be highly entertaining! I'm so enjoying this show and I hope the ratings and DVR updates keep going up because I think they could go a lot of different directions with the cast and stories.

I loved the duet too, except that the instrumentals were overpowering the vocals. I wonder if that was just a problem with my TV, because I just watched the video at ABC.com, and everything was nicely balanced there.

Also, I wonder just how many "I hate you" expressions Hayden Panettiere has in her arsenal. I swear we saw at least twenty in that first scene with Rayna.

That really was a nice moment with Juliette and the Tebow character, BTW. It's been obvious for a while that she uses sex as either a power play or an opiate. The thought of taking something slow and having a guy interested in more than just a quickie really threw her, but I think it did her some good.

I have that problem with a lot of the men on this show -- or at least a similar problem: I have trouble telling them apart. I still think it was a mistake to make all the main men brunette and all the main women blonde. (Even though the blonde thing pretty accurately reflects the real-life country scene!)

I can tell the other guys apart just fine (except the guy dancing with Scarlett looked a lot like Gunnar, but I think that was deliberate), I just think that character is very two dimensional compared to everyone else on the show.

Last night's ep in general was one of my least favorites - seemed to just push some of the storylines along. But if it sets up for a stellar "winter finale" (as ABC is referring to all of next week's episodes before the holiday break), then it's served its purpose

I think y'all (!) are being a bit hard on Scarlett's rendition of Ring of Fire. This wasn't a performance, it was a slightly drunk girl high on dancing and sweat jumping up to take the mike for a minute and doing a better job of it that most of us would. Certainly not a song that I want to add to my iPod and listen to over and over, but certainly not offensive either

I have that problem with a lot of the men on this show -- or at least a similar problem: I have trouble telling them apart. I still think it was a mistake to make all the main men brunette and all the main women blonde. (Even though the blonde thing pretty accurately reflects the real-life country scene!)

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I'll give you that all the men have brown hair, but in fact only two women are blonde. Two are redheads (including the star of the show) and we have three brunettes in feature roles.

Loved the episode (as always), but I guess there's no such thing as cliffhangers on TV anymore. All the questions raised by the last segment of the episode were answered in the teaser for the second half of the season. I won't spoil it for those who haven't watched/finished watching.

Loved the episode (as always), but I guess there's no such thing as cliffhangers on TV anymore. All the questions raised by the last segment of the episode were answered in the teaser for the second half of the season. I won't spoil it for those who haven't watched/finished watching.

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Not really . . . I'm not at all convinced Juliette's going through with that wedding, from the look on her face! I hope she doesn't. There's no way that could end well -- they're just too different.

Re: Peggy -- can I call 'em or can I call 'em? I just knew she was going to do that! Only I thought she'd pull it off. Kimberly W-P must be contracted for more episodes.

It's funny, after all the really good public performances that Scarlett's given, that everyone's going ape over her drunk butchering of "Ring of Fire"! I loved the way she sang that song near the beginning tonight -- it wasn't the same later when Gunnar sang it without her. But though I love her voice, I am finally getting a little tired of her wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights approach to life. Brilliant lyricist or not, I'm starting to think the girl doesn't have the brains God gave applesauce.

Oh, and the football player's mother was TOTALLY my dad's mother. In the flesh. I swear, my mom and I both said, "Mary!!!" at the same moment. That is exactly how she treated my mom.

And even though I don't want Juliette and Sean to get married, I'm afraid we were both cheering pretty loudly for Juliette at the end just because she was sticking it to that woman.

Great episode tonight and YAY for a scene with Deacon and Rayna together! I swear I ship them so hard and it drives me crazy because I know nothing is going to happen right now or the show would probably be over, LOL

But though I love her voice, I am finally getting a little tired of her wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights approach to life. Brilliant lyricist or not, I'm starting to think the girl doesn't have the brains God gave applesauce.

Did not know the actor playing Gunnar is from the UK, I think? He's in the Samsung phone commercial that has been playing first during commercial breaks for those that record and skip them.

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And the actress who plays Scarlett is Australian

Love the way they've created Rayna, and the way Connie Britton is playing her. So, so real. When Teddy was finally telling her the truth, I said to hubby that what's really going to get her now is that her father and sister knew about it the whole time - and sure enough, she storms into her sister's office in the next scene. I'm really hoping that later in the season or in future they have a really good story planned for Tandy.

This two year tour of Deacon's obviously can't happen - am I the only one that thought something was up at the end when the lead singer came back to his chair? Methinks he's maybe not perfectly sober.

And my goodness I'm loving Juliette! The painted her so bitchy in the first ep, and I felt so bad for her this whole ep - curses to the network for telegraphing exactly what was going to happen so I couldn't enjoy Juliette's happiness.

As for the proposal, totally wrong thing to do. Not for the rushing into marriage thing, but because of all men, this guy would have wanted to get down on one knee and do the traditional thing, with his parents virtually standing right behind him. This is going to throw him - he sticks to his values and beliefs, and he's not going to be swayed. Even if in a fit of love he takes her jet to Vegas and they get married, it won't last. And of course it can't because that wouldn't make good tv for us

Really like the friendship between Juliette and Deacon too. I guess they are positioning him as that great guy who is every girl's best friend, but every girl ends up with someone else and then comes running back to him when it goes wrong.

As for the co-tour, you can see the set up - Rayna needs to get away from Teddy and her family and get back to where she's most comfortable, not to mention finding her new voice with her new sound. Juliette's heart is about to break, and she'll go back out on tour with a vengeance. And I can't wait!

Great episode tonight and YAY for a scene with Deacon and Rayna together! I swear I ship them so hard and it drives me crazy because I know nothing is going to happen right now or the show would probably be over, LOL

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Loved the episode too. However, this is the first time that I could not hear some of the dialogue over the background music. Not even in the bars or wherever, just the standard dramatic background theme. Anybody else?

Soundtrack is out today. I'm torn over whether to get it, or just get the songs I want off iTunes. I did want it at first, but the song selection seems to have been done by a deaf monkey. No "Fade into You," and no "Already Gone," but instead we get those little girls singing "Telescope." Call me a prude, but I cannot get used to adorable little moppets singing about how you left your secrets in their bed. It gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Interestingly, on the Target deluxe edition, they have that high-pitched version of "Ring of Fire" that Scarlett did, but they're calling it "Love's Ring of Fire." Wonder if the Johnny Cash estate revolted or something!